


A Shield Called Grief

by misura



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-27 14:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17768756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: [Female Magic User Losing Her Grip on Reality/Female Magical Weapon Who Keeps Her Sane]





	A Shield Called Grief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mytha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mytha/gifts).



Dinner looked like chicken, looked like Sherryl's head, cut off, eyes gone after the crows had gotten to them - 'you could have saved her,' Dion had yelled, her anger fueled by her grief, and Dion had been right: she could have, should have, and the fact that she hadn't meant -

_"Chicken,"_ said Riftbreaker. _"Eat."_

She closed her eyes and ate, her hands telling her the truth where her eyes would not.

(For how much longer, she didn't wonder; that way, madness lay. Inasfar as she wasn't there already.)

 

On bad days, she doubted Rift, too. Swords didn't talk - even magical ones, forged from the heart of a star, dipped in a virgin dragon's blood and then doubly blessed by being put under a bed whereupon a priestess of the Light had coupled with a priestess of the Dark. Or some such thing.

_"I'm real, all right, and don't think I'm going to let you forget it."_

She supposed that she felt sorry for the dragon, a bit. Presumably, it hadn't chosen to be born a dragon, and it definitely wouldn't have chosen to spill its blood for the sake of some stupid sword.

_"Excuse you,"_ Rift said.

Of course, chances were it had grown up to terrorize the country-side, eating princes and kidnapping kings for ransom and the like. Understandable, really: after what it'd been through, it would seem like fair retribution. And so the cycle of violence continued.

"Milady?" The innkeeper looked like an executioner, her face obscured by her hood, looked worried.

"I'm tired," she said. Not a lie, though it was life itself she had grown weary of. Death would bring her rest, and peace, and forgetfulness, and possibly even sanity. She quite looked forward to it, but of course Rift would never let her die.

"Of course not," said the innkeeper, smiling a false smile, holding a dagger in her right hand behind her back, ready for use the moment she turned her back. "Rift loves you. Goddess knows no one else does."

_"Your room is the third one on the right, up the stairs,"_ Rift said.

 

"I can't live like this." An old argument: yet another thing she'd grown tired of.

_"Beats the alternative,"_ Rift said. The bed was small, but the sheets were clean. They smelled of lavender, of blood. _"Imagine how long it would take me to find a new owner in a place like this. It could be years before someone suitable passed through."_

"Owner?" She undressed.

_"A polite fiction,"_ said Rift. _"For some reason, the idea of swords owning people makes other people uncomfortable. They seem to think we're dangerous."_

"Maybe it's the name."

_"Yes. I'm sure that people would find a talking sword that called itself Snookums much less disturbing. Particularly if it also claimed to like kittens and rainbows."_

"Rift."

_"Sleep,"_ Rift said, not unkindly. _"I've got you. I won't let anything happen to you. Who knows, you might feel better after a good night's sleep."_

"Rift." She moved with the certainty of ritual: put the bare sword on the bed, lie down next to it, cover both of them with the sheets. Like bedding down with a lover, or a wife, or a friend, on a cold winter's night, with neither of them having promised themselves to another, leaving them free to do a bit of exploration and experimentation, 'does it feel good when I do this?', 'when you're alone, have you ever ...?'. Her body warmed, half with memory and half with present desire.

_"I love you, too. There. Happy?"_

With other people (which was to say: women), the pleasure seemed to build slowly. There would be, had been, giggling and kissing and touching, and sometimes it hadn't worked right away, and she'd find herself with her hands or her mouth on a place that was, on second thought, not as much an erogenous zone as they'd imagined it to be.

With Rift, it was always quick, like a sword thrust. Good, yes; the best she'd ever felt, possibly, though of course she always thought that about all her lovers, at least the ones she'd stuck with. Sex wasn't everything, sure, but if the sex wasn't working out, you might as well go back to being friends.

"I don't remember my name," she said.

_"As long as you remember mine, or at least don't refer to me as 'Susan' or something, I'll take that as a compliment."_

She had no idea what, if anything, Rift got out of this. The idea of a sword actually - well. Perhaps it was a spiritual thing.

 

She still didn't remember her name the next morning, accepting her horse from a stable girl whose face looked like melted wax and whose right hand held a whip.

_"Two weeks,"_ Rift promised. _"The Sacred Blacksmiths will know what to do. You'll see."_

Based on her experience this past week, what she would see might be a great many things, none of them pleasant. Or real, for that matter. Still, as long as Rift was there to guide her, it should be all right.

_"Damn right it will be."_


End file.
